Ireland | The Lost World of the Blasket Islands

Dún Chaoin on Ireland's west coast : The black dinghy of the "Laird of Staffa," a cross between a fishing boat and a pleasure boat, picks us up from the small pier of this village of 180 inhabitants. We're wearing red life jackets, and the Atlantic is rocking violently. The skipper stands at the wheel in the wheelhouse, heading for the open sea. In the distance, a rugged and treeless, yet green island appears. The Great Blasket, arguably Ireland's most famous ghost island, is over five kilometers long and one kilometer wide. The crossing takes fifty minutes—but it's a journey back in time.

For several hundred years, people called this place home. Even in the 20th century, they lived completely untouched by modern influences: without radio, electricity, or running water, on an island with no shops or craftsmen, where only those skilled in all kinds of trades could survive. Constantly buffeted by storms and threatened by starvation. But that is history. Today, no one lives here anymore; only a few foundations of abandoned farms remain. The islands were inhabited until 1953.

Our group of visitors disembarks at the Great Blasket's mini-jetty. Treaded hiking boots are a must. The rocks are wet with sea spray, the meadow further up is undulating and riddled with rabbit burrows. From the jetty, it's a 50-meter climb to the ghost village. Of the 30 once-inhabited houses, some have been renovated and painted white. Two serve as guesthouses, one as a café, and another as accommodation for the island guides. The most famous house has been rebuilt according to historical plans. And all visitors want to see it first.

Required reading from the ghost island

It was here that the fisherman, farmer, and writer Tomás Ó Criomhthain (Thomas O'Crohan in English) wrote about island life. His most famous novel, "The Boats No Longer Leave" from 1929, is considered a significant work of Irish literature . Every child in Ireland knows it as required reading at school. It has been translated into countless languages, including into German by Annemarie and Heinrich Böll. The Nobel Prize winner for literature and Ireland fan owned a holiday home nearby on Achill Island and lived and worked there. No one knows whether he ever visited the Great Blasket. But with his powerful, vivid images, Ó Criomhthain was an authentic voice for Böll—one that sounded completely different from the one in history-oblivious post-war Germany.

Tomás Ó Criomhthain is just one, but certainly the most famous, of those island poets who left behind over 40 novels and short stories. This is a world record – no other place on the planet boasts such a high volume of books relative to its population. Some of these works have become classics of Irish literature – such as Maurice O'Sullivan's "The Sea Is Full of the Fairest Things: An Irish Biography."

Today, the remaining foundations of the Blasket dwellings, made of fieldstone and mortar, rise defiantly and proudly into the blue Irish sky. The view from up here over green hills to a more than 200-meter-wide sandy beach with a seal colony and the dark blue Atlantic is captivating. In 1916, 25 families, a total of 179 people, lived here.

Family stories carved into walls

Muireann Ní Chearna, granddaughter of one of the residents, leads a tour through the deserted village. She works for the Blasket Centre across the island in Dún Chaoin. In the middle of the village, she stops in front of a ruin, her family home. For her, the Great Blasket isn't just history; the island is part of her family history. "We always light a fire in the house when someone in our family dies." The walls, with their carved names and dates, bear witness to this: Mícheál, Peaidí, Máirtin, Team, Muiris—they are all called Ní Chearna. Her large brown eyes fill with tears.

Muireann's family was not spared tragedy either. The great-grandparents' son died of meningitis , as no one on the island knew about the disease or knew how to treat it: "My great-grandfather always said: It wasn't meningitis that killed Seáinín, but the authorities who failed him." His great-uncle lived to be only 24 years old; his death occurred decades ago, but here in this windowless, roofless ruin, the ghosts of the past still live on.

Half of the Ní Chearna family emigrated to Springfield, Massachusetts, in the early 1950s. To the left was the fireplace, where "my grandmother cooked vegetables and sometimes fish," Muireann explains. Above it, the fishing nets and clothes dried. "Opposite was a sofa, which was also used for sleeping. There were more beds in the next room." That's all there was.

"There will be no more people like us"

Until 1953, their ancestors lived in the most primitive conditions. "They were completely cut off from the mainland. If they needed a doctor or a priest, they had to row ashore and walk miles to the nearest town," explains Muireann. But they managed to wrest enough from the fertile island to survive. And more than that.

They cultivated their language and their stories: of daring sea voyages and hunts, of feasts with gambling and drinking, of joy and sorrow, of bitter hunger when fishing failed, of revelry and revelry when the wind washed the coveted flotsam and jetsam from a lost ship ashore. They spoke pure Irish . And they told stories so well that scholars from the mainland came and encouraged them to write down their history, just as they told it orally about their island world. Tomás Ó Criomhthain first had to learn to write Irish, because since the introduction of compulsory education in 1830, English had been the national language. He anticipated the end of the community when he wrote: "I have done my best to record the peculiarities of the people, for there will be no more people like us."

The isolation of the Great Blasket Island ensured that not only the archaic way of life but also traditions survived longer there than anywhere else in Ireland. The most beautiful Irish was spoken on the Emerald Isle. When, in the 20th century, progress on the mainland caught up with the Blaskets, when telephones and radios, hospitals, and cars became commonplace for more and more people, time seemed to stand still in Blasket. Until the very end, there was no electricity; only kerosene lamps and candles provided light. Heat came from the turf fire in the open fireplace.

Cleared by the Irish authorities

In the 1940s, the residents received a telegraph connection for emergencies. This was also the case in 1947, the year the island's last child was born: "Cut off by storm – in distress – nothing left to eat – send food – Blaskets." At the highest point, in the center of the island, stands the ruins of a signal box. Fieldstones, the islanders' building material, lie all around. Anyone strolling around here will stumble upon the remains of a sign. During the Second World War, residents laid out the word "EIRE" in five-meter-high letters on white stones to signal to bombers and low-flying aircraft that they were over a neutral country.

The last 22 residents left the green boulders in the Atlantic on November 17, 1953. The Irish authorities had evacuated the island – officially because of the inhumane living conditions. Ten years earlier, the last teacher had left. The Blasket Islanders took everything with them: furniture, household goods, tools, even doors. They left their homes behind – and their culture. Many headed for the United States. North America, 2,000 nautical miles away, seemed closer to them than the Irish mainland.

An island where time has stood still

A lot of grass has grown over the history of the Blasket Islands, but it is not forgotten. Today, four renovated houses with guest rooms stand on the edge of the village. Nature lovers can stay overnight and order tea, scones, and jam at the café. There is still no electricity, and cell phone reception is anything but reliable.

It's this sense of timelessness that grips everyone who visits the Great Blasket. What people saw 100 years ago looks (almost) the same today. An island untouched by the industrial revolution and the internet, cultural and religious struggles , hot and cold wars, all the transformations of the past centuries. The islanders have left behind a legacy that makes the Irish proud and inspires literature to this day.

After a stay of almost three hours, we have to descend back to the pier. Our skipper is waiting with the dinghy. The wind has picked up. He can't guarantee whether he'll even be able to set sail later. The crossing could be tricky.